A Haunted Hotel?
by Bored Outta My Mind
Summary: Heero and Relena are in a hotel. Apparently, Relena is afraid of a lot of things, including thunderstorms and ghosts. What happens? Well, read and find out.


Ok, well this is my first Gundam Wing fic, so let me know what you think.

As many stories start, it was a dark, rainy night. "Ugh, I hate hotels." Relena Darlin mumbled under her breath before continuing her rant. "They creep me out. And it doesn't help that I over heard people in the diner discussion whether or not the rumors they'd heard about this place being haunted were true or not. I never heard these rumors and now I wish I hadn't even heard **_of_** them."

She jumped as a booming clap of thunder resounded from above, seeming to come from all directions and creep up on her before gradually rumbling away. A bright flash of lightning was still seen accompanying it even though the heavy hotel curtains were shut as tight as possible. There was also the constant thudding of the rain against the thick glass windows. "I hate thunderstorms too," she added.

For the next 20 minutes, she valiantly tried to ignore the loud, echoing thunder, bright white lightning, rain pounding on the window, and her overactive imagination dreaming up ghosts and the like. Sadly, it didn't work.

'This is ridiculous! Out of all the things to be scared of, it's a thunderstorm and ghosts! After living through a war, being held hostage, surviving assassination attempts, and speaking publicly with the whole world hanging and depending on my every word, I get scared of **_this_**! Unbelievable,' she thought to herself.

Giving up on trying to ignore everything and go to sleep, she hastily put a robe over her pajamas and shuffled to the door across from hers. 'This is ridiculous,' she was saying to herself again. 'I'm going to my body guard because…this is so lame.'

Shaking her head at herself, Relena knocked tentatively on the door, knowing he'd hear. At least, she'd thought he would. But he wasn't coming out and she didn't hear any movement inside. "Come on Heero!" she whispered mentally, knocking again, this time a little harder.

Meanwhile, inside, Heero Yuy lifted his head off the pillow and turned it to look at the clock on the nightstand beside him. The red numbers glared at him: 3:23. Who the heck was knocking on the door of his hotel room at this time? It certainly wasn't an emergency, or else whoever it was would either knock louder and/or just barge in. He tried to ignore the knocking, but this person was persistent.

Finally, just as he was grabbing the pillow beside him to put over his head and ears to hopefully muffle the sound, he heard that familiar voice whispering, "Heero?" and then a few more raps.

Realizing it was Relena, he bolted up and went to the door. He swung it open suddenly, surprising the girl standing there in front of him, her small hand raised, ready to knock some more. Her sky blue eyes were widened fractionally and her blonde hair was slightly mussed.

"What's wrong?" he asked in his normal, calm, indifferent tone, making him sound like he didn't actually give a care at all.

Relena clamped down on her lower lip and averted her eyes, her cheeks flushing slightly. A clap of thunder sounded, this one even louder that any of the others before it. She cursed herself as she jumped. Looking up and seeing Heero raise an eyebrow at her, she felt her annoyance start to rise. Why did he have to be so…fearless? It wasn't fair!

Heero watched Relena glare up at him, since he was a few inches taller than her, with one hand still on the doorknob and the other on the doorframe. He removed his hands from their places to cross his arms over his chest and shifted so he was casually leaning against the doorframe his hand had just been occupying. "Startle you?" he asked unnecessarily.

Relena hardened her glare instead of actually answering him. She watched him stand, well **_lean_** there to be precise, in his usual sleeveless green shirt and a pair of long, cotton black pants, his beautiful sapphire eyes barely expressing his amusement at her and his unruly brown hair fashionably, wildly tousled, as always. "Well, are you going to let me in, or are you going to keep me standing in this…uncomfortable hallway?" she asked, hands on her hips. She couldn't stop her eyes from looking to both sides of her, making sure no one, or thing, was there, trying to get her.

He looked slightly surprised. He wasn't used to having anyone come into his room, so he wasn't used to inviting people in. The idea hadn't even crossed his mind. Wordlessly, he steeped to the side and let her enter his dark room.

Hearing Relena stumbling around, most likely searching for a light, he easily made his way soundlessly through the pitch-black room and flipped a light switch. As soon as the lights came on, she saw where Heero was and walked toward him, ready to scold him for something or another. She was about 6 feet away from him when she tripped. Heero was over there and caught her before her expected collision with the ground.

Her eyes were shut tightly, waiting for the impact that usually accompanies stumbles like this. Cautiously, she cracked one eye open, seeing as how she hadn't hit the floor yet and there were arms at her waist. Finally comprehending that Heero had caught her, she opened both eyes and stood up on her own.

Heero made sure she was fine before turning away. "You should be more careful. Now what did you come here for?"

Not exactly the king of subtlety, but she already knew that. Looking down, she realized it was his shoe she'd tripped over. She hadn't realized he was barefoot. "Thanks for your concern," she said wryly.

He gave a slight shrug. "Are you going to answer my question?"

Relena sighed. Apparently, her subject changing wasn't going to work. Not that she really expected it to with Heero, but it was worth a shot. He never seemed to let things go until her got answers. At times like these, it could be rather annoying.

He was staring at her in a manner as close to expectant as the seemingly emotionless ex-gundam pilot could. But she knew he wasn't really as emotionless as he liked to seem. She shook her head at him. "Heero, I believe you're the most complex person I know."

"Hn?" was his reply, with a slightly confused expression.

"Never mind. Yeah, about why I'm here…" She cleared her throat and looked around sheepishly. "I'm actually not really sure."

"Hn," was his reply with a raised eyebrow, his expression saying 'And you call **_me_** complex?'

"I don't know. I couldn't sleep I guess," she said lamely.

Heero looked at her questioningly. "And coming over here and waking me up is supposed to help?"

Relena flushed slightly. "Oh, I'm really sorry about waking you up, I hadn't really thought about what I was doing. Sorry. I'll just go now," she said quietly, turning to leave.

He sighed and called after her, knowing he very well might soon regret this decision. "Relena," he called out, making her stop and turn around. "I know you didn't just come here for no reason. Now are you going to tell me what's bothering you that you couldn't sleep?"

Relena smiled. 'It seems he may know me better than I thought he did.' She walked over to the single bed in the room and sat on it. She decided she'd much rather be here, in the company of Heero, then alone in her room. After a small sigh, she decided to tell him about her ridiculous frights. He wouldn't laugh at her, him laughing at anything at all was rare.

"Ok, fine. First of all, there's the storm with all its racket and bright lights. Then there's the fact that I heard people talking about rumors of this place being haunted, so my imagination, just to be cruel, starts working overtime after the lights go off to come up with a ton of things that could be ghosts waiting to pop out and kill me, or at least annoy me. And being **_alone_** in the stupid room, didn't help one bit either."

She saw the corners of Heero's lips twitch ever so slightly upward, almost imperceptibly. It was something most people would never notice, but after spending as much time with him as she had, she learned to pick up on tiny hints like these and minor changes in his tone of voice to tell how he was really feeling since the stubborn guy never gave any other clues. How mean, making her work so hard just to know how he was feeling. Hmph.

That twitch she had halfway expected. What she **_definitely_** had NOT expected was for his eyes to slide closed gently and for him to let out a soft chuckle.

She found it was a nice sound though, one she'd never heard before and now found herself wishing he'd make it more often. When he stopped his soft chuckle, she pouted slightly. But a few minutes later, she remembered what exactly it was he'd been laughing at: her. Her slight pout transformed into a glare quickly.

"While I enjoy getting to hear you actually laugh Heero Yuy, what, pray tell, are you laughing at!" She asked crossly, hands on her hips.

He gave her a rare half smile. "Nothing. You're just…unpredictable." Before she said anything in response, he kept talking. "Well, we can't have our vice foreign minister all alone in her room, afraid of thunderstorms and ghosts, so you're either staying here with me or I'm going back to your room with you. I never liked the idea of having you by yourself in a hotel room on your own in the first place, especially at night. It's not safe and I can't do my job if I'm not with you when something happens." This was almost the most he'd ever heard him say at one time, and as close to joking as he was going to get. She sighed to herself. Of course, it was just doing his job that he cared about; she might as well be a sack of flour for all he cared.

But Relena put all those thoughts aside and looked up at him hopefully. "Really? I can stay here with you?" she asked excitedly.

"Did I not just say that?"

"Well, yes, but…thank you!" She realized she was much more relieved that she didn't have to stay there alone again than she thought she'd be. She also was slightly surprised to find that she'd flung herself at Heero, wrapping him in a grateful hug.

Heero tensed slightly, very unused to this kind of contact. He just stood there and let her hug him until she let go of him.

She looked up at him sheepishly. "Sorry about that. Oh! Did you want to go back to sleep? I forgot I woke you up."

"I'm up now, it doesn't matter anymore."

Relena grinned. She grinned in that way, showing she had something planned. He had a feeling his earlier hunch about regretting keeping her in here was about to be proven true.

"Ok, if you're not going to sleep again, then play 'I Never' with me!"

Heero just blinked at her. "What is this 'I Never' game?"

Relena rolled her eyes. "I forgot, you never do anything fun like this, so you wouldn't know," she teased. "Just kidding. Ok, it's a drinking game where-"

Heero interrupted her right there. "Drinking game? No, no alcohol. It's not good for you."

"Ok fine. You are way too overprotective of me Heero. But that's ok, I don't mind," she said with a big smile.

He shrugged and took a few seconds to unknowingly admire the bright smile she was giving him before saying, "Part of my job."

"Yes, yes it is," she said distractedly, obviously having something else on her mind. She shook her head slightly to clear it before continuing. "Ok, well can we just use Cokes then?"

Heero looked warily at her and said "Hn," which she took to mean, 'I don't even know if I want to participate in this yet. But if somehow you talk me into to it as you always do, then yeah, I guess we can use Cokes.'

Relena clapped her hands together happily. "Great! Now as I was saying, it's a drinking game where one person starts with saying I never, then they say something they've never done. If the other person **_has_** done what that person said they didn't, then the person that has done it takes a drink. The first person out of drink loses. Oh, and if someone says I never did something, and they really have, then they take a drink too after they're done talking."

"Hn."

"For example, if I said I've never been a guy, you'd have to take a drink. Get it?"

"Yeah."

"So will you play? Please!" she pleaded with big blue eyes.

"What's the point?" Heero asked.

"It's just something fun to do and sometimes you get to find out things about people you never knew and never would have guessed to be true about them. Come on, just try it!" Relena badgered.

Heero shook his head at himself slightly and finally relented. "Fine. But I don't have any drinks in here. Do you have any in your room?"

Relena shook her head no. "Nuh uh. Shoot! Now what?"

"You could always go down to the vending machines in the lobby," he said matter-of-factly before mentally cursing himself for actually encouraging the playing of this stupid game.

She shook her head again in protest. "No way. There's no way I'm going down there."

"Ok, **_I'll_** go then." Heero said simply.

"And leave me here all by myself! Nope, I don't think so mister."

"Well, then come with me," he said starting to sound exasperated.

She brightened slightly, as if it was a completely genius, brilliant idea that she never ever would have thought of. "Ok!" she said cheerfully, ready to go now.

They walked down the dark hallway of doors, elevators, and ice machines. Heero walked out first, Relena close behind, right on his heels.

"Uh, Heero? I can't see," she whispered.

"Why are you whispering?" She didn't answer and he answered her complaint. "Just follow me," he said, starting off down the hallway toward the elevators, which were 'conveniently' placed at the complete opposite end.

He could tell she was nervous. Her breathing had quickened and she was stepping lightly, cautiously, and uncomfortably close to his back.

While they were walking by an ice machine, it suddenly started up, making a loud whirring noise right after a horrendously loud clap of thunder and a brilliant white flash of lightning.

Relena squealed quietly then grabbed Heero's right arm tightly, the one farther from the 'evil and possessed' ice machine making the noise. She buried her face in his bare shoulder. "I hate this," she muttered into his skin.

Heero had stopped, surprised at her strange actions. Normally she seemed so fearless and now…this. He found himself not minding her being latched onto his arm with her face pressed against him though he thought he would have.

"Relena it's fine, nothing is going to happen. Just stay with me, we're almost to the elevators," he told her softly. He felt her nod against his shoulder, as close to him as she could get.

He continued walking, Relena matching her steps to his after stumbling for a while.

They made to the elevators in one piece, unwounded, much to Relena's relief. Heero jabbed the button with the little black down arrow on it and waited impatiently for the stupid, slow thing to get there while Relena's eyes darted from side to side warily.

With a ding, their ride finally arrived. Heero steeped inside, dragging Relena, who hadn't quite noticed the elevator was there yet, in with him since she refused to let go of her death grip on him. "Relena, you can let go of me now if you want," he said calmly. "She shook her head vehemently. "No," she said childishly. Even though they were in a brightly lit, relatively quiet space, she was more comfortable with being attached to Heero's arm. You see, this way, he wouldn't be able to bolt out anywhere and leave her. Not that he'd ever do that. No, of course not.

Right now, they were on level 5, the top level of the hotel building. Heero pushed the button for the ground level and with a slight jerk, they were on their way down.

A bright red object on the elevator wall caught his eye. It was the 'STOP' button. With a mental mischievous grin he rarely got, he sidled closer to the wall and casually leaned against it with his left arm (the one Relena wasn't using for a lifeline) near that button. 'Accidentally,' he completely leaned against it, making the elevator door jolt to a sudden, violent halt right where it was, in between floors, while a loud warning boxing noise filled the room.

Relena let out a small scream saying over and over, "What was that! What was that!"

After a minute or two of phrases such as, "What's that noise!" "Why are we stopped!" and "Heero, **_do_** something!" he finally decided and managed to move away from the wall with Relena cutting off the circulation in his arm with her surprisingly stronger grip and refusing to budge willingly.

As soon as he'd moved, the sound 'miraculously' stopped and they were moving again. Relena let out a huge sigh of relief. "Guess whatever it was is fine now," Heero said evenly.

She glared at him. He, in return, just looked back at her nonchalantly. Since he obviously wasn't going to **_ask_** her why she was glaring at him, she went ahead and told him. "I'm glaring at you because it's not fair. 'What's not fair?' you may be thinking. Well I'll tell you; it's not fair that you never lose your calm and always know what to do! Mr…Mr…Perfect Soldier!" she said attempting, but not exactly accomplishing, an insult.

Heero raised a perfect eyebrow at her.

She threw her hands up in defeat. "Ugh! Never mind."

The elevator finally reached its destination with no more delays. They stepped out of the elevator in unison. To say Relena was relieved to see the lobby completely lit would be a huge understatement.

The vending machines were also at the opposite end of the large room, as the elevators had been in the hall above.

The attendant at the lobby desk smiled at them. "Hello. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Relena shook her head and realizing she was still on Heero's arm, she let him go as if he'd burned her and said sheepishly, "No, thank you, we were just on our way to get a few drinks from the machine."

The lady smiled again. "Alright, well I'll be right back, I just need to grab something real quick. Now don't do anything you're not supposed to while I'm away," she said with a wink before striding out of the lobby.

They'd just started the walk down to the afore mentioned machines when suddenly a startlingly close bolt of lightning struck. The sound of electricity was heard. "Zzzzt!" Then the room was thrown into darkness.

"Oh no," Relena moaned. "Heero, what do we do **_now_**?"

"We're doing what we came here for," was his simple, infuriatingly calm answer.

Looking toward the other end of the lobby, she could see absolutely nothing; the dim, eerie glow of the vending machines was gone. Apparently, all the electricity anywhere near them in the neighborhood had gone out as well, because she didn't see any light what so ever. Blinking, she found that closing her eyes was no different from having them open.

Though she'd never readily admit it, she was scared of the dark. For a moment, she forgot Heero was there, thought she was all alone in a strange, very dark place. The darkness seemed to creep up on her, trying to smother her. She started finding it hard to breathe.

Heero, hearing her start to hyperventilate, called out to her, masking his worry; she'd even remained free of his arm and was standing unassisted. He could feel her start to sway slightly. "Relena?" he called out, ready to catch her if need be.

This seemed to snap her out of it. She stiffened. "Heero? Where are you?"

He was still standing right next to her, but she obviously didn't know that, so he reached for her hand. Right before his hand touched hers, he told her, "I'm right here," so she wouldn't freak out when he touched her.

When she felt his fingers brush hers, she relaxed slightly. She entwined her fingers with his and pulled herself closer. His hand felt nice in hers. Odd.

Heero was once again surprised by her actions, and felt rather awkward, something he did NOT like one bit. He shoved his other hand into his pocket and tried to pay the pretty girl clasping onto his hand no mind.

Somewhat reluctantly, Relena released his hand slowly to wrap her arms around his upper right arm once more, feeling the strong, sculpted muscles there. She smiled softly. Now she felt safe, with Heero in her grasp. The only way she'd feel safer was if he was holding her instead of it being the other was around. And she found herself all of a sudden wanting to feel **_very_** safe. wink, wink

Gah! Why was she having thoughts like this! And about her bodyguard of all people! 'Relena, you need to chill out before these small rather harmless thoughts escalate into something more,' she chastised herself.

Relena shook her head to clear it, but it didn't work. 'Why is it that in stories people shook their heads to clear them and all of a sudden, POOF! The thoughts are gone?' she thought curiously. Since it wasn't working for her, she instead tried to concentrate on what they were doing: getting drinks for her game. This method worked better and soon she forgot her thoughts that were turning romantic toward her bodyguard. At least, momentarily.

So they started walking, intent on their mission to get 2 Cokes. Wait. Hadn't she just noticed a minute ago that the coke machines were OFF! "Um, Heero?" she said for what seemed like the millionth time that night. "How exactly are we supposed to get our drinks if the machines are off?"

"I've got a plan," he said shortly.

Relena waited for him to elaborate on this 'plan' of his. He didn't. She sighed to herself quietly. She wasn't sure why she'd ever expected him to do so in the first place. It just wasn't his thing. It was really irritating sometimes. Grrr…

"You're not going to hyperventilate or anything again are you?"

She bristled. "No, as a matter of fact I'm not. I'll have you know that-"

Heero interrupted her with his usual "Hn."

Her mouth snapped shut with a scowl.

That mental mischievous grin was back. Wow, 2 times not only in one day, but within a few minutes. This day should go down in history. He'd come up with a different plan than the one he'd just spoken of. He was going to pull another trick on Relena. Poor girl, she was the butt of jokes that scared her witless.

Heero noticed a small trashcan not far from them. Still keeping their slow, easy pace so as not to clue in that it was him, he stuck out a foot and kicked it, rather hard. The trash can fell with a piercing clang/thump in the silence, a few feet away from them.

Relena halted to an abrupt stop. "Heero? What was that?" she whispered tensely, anxiously. "There's no one in here, so what was it? Or maybe someone walked in and tripped on something. Yeah, maybe it was the desk attendant," she said nervously, trying to reassure herself.

"No one has come in here."

"So it's just us! Then what made that noise!"

"I don't know," he lied. "Ghosts?" he suggested sarcastically.

But she thought he was serious. "Ghosts! You really think so! Oh my God! This place really **_is_** haunted! What are they going to do to us? Would they kill us? How are you supposed to protect me from ghosts? How are you going to save yourself? What if they kill you! Heero, you can't die!"

Heero was taken aback, realizing she was asking about him and what if **_he_** died. What about herself? That was just like her, always thinking about someone else, even at times like these.

He could feel her panic starting to rise to dangerous levels. Soon, either survival instincts would kick in, adrenaline would start pumping and she'd be in fight or flight (almost certainly flight) and she'd run off and get herself hurt in the pitch black room or she'd be rooted to the spot and hyperventilate again like last time. He decided it was time to calm her down.

Meanwhile, Relena had continued her what if…questions, imagining all the worst possible situations, while her voice steadily rose in pitch and volume. She sounded near hysterics by now. He interrupted her, saying, "Relena, I kicked a trash can. It was me, not ghosts."

Her brain took a while to comprehend this in its muddled state. Slowly, she began to calm down. "Oh." She paused for about a minute before saying, "Well, let's go get these stupid drinks and go back to the room, this is weird." What exactly she was calling weird, even she didn't know.

They finally reached the drink machines. "Ok, now what's your plan?"

Heero just said, "Relena, you're going to have to let go of me." She did as she was told, somewhat unwillingly. Then, without saying anymore, he just walked up to the machine and felt around where he knew the lock was. Finding it quickly, he pulled something out of his pocket and easily picked the lock. Pulling on it, the door opened easily. "Cokes?" he asked, being sure to grab the right drink.

"Yeah," she said distractedly. She knew she shouldn't be, but she was amazed at Heero's talents. She couldn't pick a lock like that even if she'd had light to do it. If she could do it at all with the lights on, it'd take her heck of a lot longer as well.

He grabbed two, left 2 there to pay for them, then turned back to Relena. He walked close to her, making it easier for her to grab him since he knew she was going to the first chance she got. Might as well save her trouble.

She did just as he'd expected her to, winding her arms tightly around his left arm this time.

Luckily, they made it all the way across the room safely without any mishaps. Relena still got anxious every once in a while about small noises, but nothing too bad. Before they got to the elevators, Heero took a right turn.

"Heero? What are you doing?" she asked, confused.

"Electricity is off, the elevators aren't working," Heero explained evenly.

"Oh yeah," she replied, feeling rather stupid. And then she thought about it. Walking up 5 flights of stairs in a dark stairwell? She groaned and whined to herself, 'Not more!'


End file.
